Researchers in the agricultural sciences were asked to identify pressing issues facing small-holder farms in the developing world; winners range from graduate students to faculty in the United States and Africa

The National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced the 13 winners of the $10,000 BREAD Ideas Challenge.

The challenge, part of the Basic Research to Enable Agricultural Development (BREAD) program and co-funded by NSF and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, asked participants from around the world to describe, in 100 words or fewer, the most pressing, novel issues facing small-holder farms--farms typically the size of a football field or smaller--in developing countries.

The winning challenges run the gamut of BREAD-relevant research. For example, Jim Ward, a geneticist at Wilmington College in Ohio, calls for the means to create new breeds of indigenous root crops. Fidalis Mujibi, a geneticist with the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, and George Perry, an associate professor and beef reproductive management specialist at South Dakota State University, ask if costly liquid nitrogen can be eliminated from the livestock artificial insemination process.

Challenges were selected not only because of their potential impact on small-holder farmers, but also due to their lack of previous attention. Jeff Elhai, a researcher at the Center for the Study of Biological Complexity at Virginia Commonwealth University, challenges the scientific community to help reduce farmer dependence on expensive fertilizers by creating a nitrogen-fixing organelle in small-holder crops.

"These prizewinning challenges range from the global to the local and across diverse disciplines," said John Wingfield, NSF assistant director for Biological Sciences. "What they have in common is that they all represent topics that have not yet had the attention or funding to prompt a solution. The reality is that solving any of these challenges in a changing world would have a dramatic impact on the lives of millions of small-holder farmers around the globe."

Winners range from graduate students to faculty. Ten of the 13 winners are from U.S. universities and colleges. The remaining three winners are from Nairobi, Kenya; Arusha, Tanzania; and Entebbe, Uganda.

"Innovation in agricultural research can create new pathways out of poverty for millions of families who rely on farming for their food and income," said Rob Horsch, deputy director in the Agricultural Development program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "We're excited to partner with NSF and the global research community to focus innovation on the needs of small-holder farmers who are lifting themselves and their communities out of poverty."

The BREAD program used a blind judging process to score the competitors' entries. The expert judges from NSF and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation only had access to applicants' ideas and countries of origin.

Challenge: Develop means for "root swelling" of small wild roots, leading the way to the creation of hundreds of new root crops that could improve the nutrition and incomes of developing world farmers.

Olav Rueppell, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, N.C.

Challenge: Develop knowledge and means to create or modify crops to make use of aerial nutrients, increasing small-holder farmers' yields in nutrient-deficient land while reducing their dependence on chemical fertilizers.

Robert Boyle Onzima, National Agricultural Research Organization, Entebbe, Uganda

Challenge: Develop knowledge and means for a cold-chain-free artificial insemination process, making this process available to communities without infrastructure and for tropical cattle prone to silent heat.

Curtis Frederick, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.

Challenge: Develop knowledge, techniques, and local resources (e.g. reagents) to offer inexpensive soil sampling to small-holder farmers, making use of local technology (e.g. proliferation of cell phones) as well as local practices.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2015, its budget is $7.3 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and other institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 48,000 competitive proposals for funding, and makes about 11,000 new funding awards. NSF also awards about $626 million in professional and service contracts yearly.